My First Glimpse into the Future

By Nicole Black

I’ve always been a bit of a geek. My love affair with computers began in the early 1980s when my dad brought home our first computer, a Radio Shack TRS-80. In order to make that computer work, I had to learn the BASIC programming language and from that point on I was hooked. My freshman year in college, I was one of the few liberal arts majors to enroll in a computer programming class and learned how to program in PASCAL.

Law school was a bit of a technological black hole, however. Aside from using computers to conduct legal research and for drafting papers, they were of little import compared to the oh-so-serious topics we were studying.

However, despite the technology glut in law school, I managed to cling to my geeky identity by becoming a hardcore trekkie. I never missed an episodeof “Star Trek-the Next Generation” and watched many of them multiple times. I even read Star Trek books. And, although I’m embarrassed to admit it, I once snuck out of a law school formal and, decked out in my little black dress, crashed a Star Trek convention that I discovered was being held in the same hotel.

The most fascinating part of Star Trek for me was the ubiquitous presence of technology in the lives of the Star Trek crew. There were small, unobtrusive, touch screen computers embedded into the walls and at every workstation and desktop. Crewmembers carried around tricorders—small, hand-held devices that acted as communication portals and mini computers and provided users with a wealth of information, right in the palm of their hands.

I marveled at the writers’ vision of technology and found the possibilities inherent in a system of connected, responsive, user-friendly computers with unlimited computing power to be simply mind-boggling. My slow,stand-alone, clunky desktop computer seemed to be of a different species than the computers used by the Star Trek crew and I hoped that one day, perhaps my children would have the good fortune to interact with devices such as those envisioned by Star Trek’s creators.

Little did I know how soon that day would come and that I, not just my children, would get to use technology reminiscent of that used by the Star Trek crew. Had someone told me this during my third year in law school in 1994, I would have written them off as a nut job!

And yet, just 13 years later, in June of 2007, the first iPhone was released at a time when Internet bandwidth and processing power were rapidly increasing and costs for bandwidth and data storage were likewise decreasing.

It was the perfect storm for a new age of technology.

As soon as I got my hands on an iPhone, I knew that the world as we knew it—including the practice of law– was about to change. It was like a tricorder, but even better.

With the release of the first iPhone, Steve Jobs ushered in the age of mobile computing—an event that, in the mid-1990s–I hadn’t envisionedwould occur during my lifetime.

The release of the iPad in 2010 was the next step in the transformationof our technological landscape. Mobile computing is now inescapableand ubiquitous. I believe that this year will be the tipping point for tabletcomputers and that, by the middle of 2012, sales of tablet computers willovertake sales of laptops.

We are fortunate to be living through a technological revolution. And of course, the legal field is not immune. Although our profession has traditionally been slow to embrace change, I see signs that members of our profession are quickly realizing that the proliferation of mobile computing is inevitable and failing to adapt to this revolution simply isn’t an option.

Remarkably, the future is now. What I once thought was simply a pipedream is reality. Let’s take advantage of the exciting opportunities that ithas to offer. Who knows where it will lead us?

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